Life on the Farm: In which Anna discovers she is irredeemably bourgeois

There is something kind of pathetic about the path my thoughts were taking, as I pulled nettles out of a field of potatoes. I was feeling so awfully sorry for myself. How ironic it was and how sheltered my life has been! Do the dishes, weed the potatoes, peel the onions, pull the rusty nails out of those boards...woe is me! Am I the poor girl taking orders from Baba Yaga?

I've gotten most of my knowledge of farm labor and rural life from novels. I'm not talking about the kind that romanticize the work - a pastoral novel about the pleasures of Arcadian shepherd life wouldn't help much. But I grew up on a steady diet of fantasy books, full of characters who have to work hard and overcome all odds to succeed at their quest. Its not that I never faced challenges, but they've rarely been physical in nature, outside of cross-country races. I noticed this while hiking in Tajikistan last year, that I felt like a character in Lord of the Rings, and that by imagining myself as such, the long march on little food seemed like an adventure.

So, picture me, in my field of potatoes in the rain, cursing at nettle stings and my sore back, and trying to imagine myself in a heroic struggle in order to make myself feel better. Of course, to have the real picture, one would have picture the backdrop of the Appenines, or a beautiful view over Lake Como, and a delicious bowl of pasta when I'm done.

Yes, as farming goes, I had the tourist's point of view.

WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) is an organization that matches volunteers with organic farms. In exchange for labor, the volunteer gets free room and board. And, complaining aside, I got a great deal. I'm maybe not the typical volunteer - I support organic farming and the slow food movement, but I'm not likely to use the skills in the future, beyond having a backyard garden. I just wanted a way to fill time between Bologna and Slovakia.

My first farm was in the Appenine town of Montese, an hour southwest of Bologna. Carla and Stefano are artists who decided to go "back to the land" and became mostly full time farmers. Maybe because of my background, those are the kind of people I feel very at home with, and we had a lot to talk about.  I weeded a lot of lavender, but I had companionship in the form of Carla, Amanda, my fellow American WWOOFer, and Rivi, a friendly and excitable puppy.

lavender fields (post weeding)

I liked being in Montese, and it was amazing to me that such a rural and unchanged world existed so close to Bologna. The picturesque town, with its hilltop castle, was one of the last places to be liberated from the German occupation during WWII. It finally was freed by Brazilian soldiers, who are commemorated in monuments all over the area.  The town museum was full of strange artifacts from that time. As I walked through the woods I could easily imagine the partisans hiding in the chestnut groves, but it is hard, I think, to really understand the hardship and brutality of those times.

German Propaganda

My second farm was on Lake Como, perched high on the mountain overlooking the water. The first few days it rained, and I worked hard, and felt sorry for myself. But finally the sun came out and the lake was sparkling, and I could see the sailboats by the opposite shore. At the end of the day, I climbed down the endless staircase that linked my village to Varenna on the shore, and dove into the water. The cold felt so good, and I dried off sitting on the dock, watching the mountains on the North end of the lake turn purple and fade in the evening. From that point on, it didn't matter how many onions I peeled, or fields I weeded,  I was still one of the luckiest people in the world.